Conduit 2, Hands-on

Man, the folks over at Sega know how to make a fun game. Despite my barometer that ranges between love and moderate dislike of their games, I can safely say this is going to be a game that Wii owners should be watching for.

Screenshot courtesy of Destructoid.

Most of the hands-on time I had was spent with the single player campaign. I'll admit I never played the original Conduit, but the game does a good job of explaining the events of the first game. Your character is in pursuit of an FBI agent responsible for an alien invasion, and the supposed (attempted) destruction of Washington DC.

The first level has you on an oil rig. It's raining, and the graphics engine handles the slick shining of the metal that's affected by rain pretty well. The particle effects of the rain are also impressive. Of course this is on the Wii, so it is limited by the Wii's hardware capabilities. Looking past the limitations of the system, the game feels good. The controls are 100% customizable, from the sensitivity of your cursor, to the area on the outside of the screen that makes you turn.

There were a few bugs, but the version we were playing was an earlier make of the game with the debugging tools left in. We were told most of the bugs were probably already squashed, but of course they took note of them to double check. It's impressive the lengths that Sega and High Voltage are going to to make sure that this game is one of the best Wii games ever.

The enemies are impressive, and act organically. I also kind of like how you can get into a fistfight with some of them, as they don't go down in one blow. My favorite weapon out of the game is one (the name escapes me at the moment) that you charge up, and when it's fully charged, you release the trigger to shoot an explosive beam at enemies. It explodes when it comes into contact with either walls or enemies. If it's a close miss, it'll chase enemies for a small bit. You can even turn the Wii-mote to change the orientation of the beam, allowing you to shoot around boxes. It's alternate fire turns it into a machine gun of non-charged bullets.

After beating the first level in single player, it was about time to play multiplayer. I'm still kicking myself over not having brought our camera. I would have, but I (wrongly) assumed that it would be an NDA event.

Multiplayer can either be played split-screen or online. Thankfully, there are lobbies and the game takes care of matchmaking. Also, throughout the (single player and multiplayer) game you earn achievements. It's in multiplayer that these achievements help you out, as the points earned via said achievements can be invested in weapons, perks, and new skins. Your personal avatar is highly customizable, and I ran with a Grey/Green color scheme. The perks are a standard affair, such as more armor, unlimited sprint, better melee. The game is really tongue-in-cheek with the descriptions. For example, the improved melee says "You know Kung-Fu" and the unlimited sprint (metal legs) says "The surgery is highly risky, but you think the chicks'll dig it".

The online worked well. There's no telling at this point how the actual server plays out, as we were all using a switch (think closed-network router) to connect and form a local network to play on. You always have vision of nearby enemies, as they show up on your radar as blips. This keeps you from getting that "Call of Duty" feeling of walking around a corner and instantly getting killed before you have any reaction time.

The game mode which I liked the most was "ASE Basketball." For those who never played the Conduit, the ASE is your disembodied alien orb companion. ASE Basketball is like Capture the Flag, except at the end you have to throw the ASE in your enemies' hoops.

The only thing that I hope is improved by the time the game launches (TBD, though Sega recently pushed it back to April) is that the spawn time is lessened. It takes a bit of time after you die until you can "Submit to the pain" and then even more time after you hit the button to respawn until you actually do.


I didn't get to spend too much time with the multiplayer, admittedly, as via some random button combination on my controller I unlocked debug mode. But I can give it my shining seal of approval that this Wii game will (and should be) a Day 1 Purchase, as long as the game doesn't change much from the way it was in the build we played (which it shouldn't).


Thanks again Sega! I had quite a bit of fun meeting the team behind the Conduit, and wouldn't mind at all coming back to see what you guys have in the works.